The low achievement trap

The low achievement trap

The Low Achievement Trap is an empirical study of student mathematics learning in Grade 6 classrooms that is unique in its focus on two school systems shaped by different political histories on either side of the Botswana-South Africa border. The study provides a detailed examination of the capacity of teachers - how they teach, how much they teach, and what they teach. Because of this wealth of detail, The Low Achievement Trap gives us much greater insight than previous research into why students seem to be making larger gains in the classrooms of South Eastern Botswana than in those of North West Province, South Africa. Rather than identifying a single major factor to explain this difference, the study finds that a composite of inter-related variables revolving around teachers mathematics knowledge and their capacity to teach mathematics are crucial to improving education in both regions. The message is a hopeful one: good teachers can make a difference in student learning.

Education and skills development

  • Product Information
  • Format: 148mm x 210mm
  • Pages: 64
  • ISBN 13: 978-07969-2164-2
  • Rights: World Rights

Comparing schools in Botswana and South Africa The Low Achievement Trap is an empirical study of student mathematics learning in Grade 6 classrooms that is unique in its focus on two school systems shaped by different political histories on either side of the Botswana-South Africa border. The study provides a detailed examination of the capacity of teachers - how they teach, how much they teach, and what they teach. Because of this wealth of detail, The Low Achievement Trap gives us much greater insight than previous research into why students seem to be making larger gains in the classrooms of South Eastern Botswana than in those of North West Province, South Africa. Rather than identifying a single major factor to explain this difference, the study finds that a composite of inter-related variables revolving around teachers mathematics knowledge and their capacity to teach mathematics are crucial to improving education in both regions. The message is a hopeful one: good teachers can make a difference in student learning.

Foreword
Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Introduction
Xolela Mangcu

  1. WEB Du Bois, Encyclopedia Africana and Nelson Mandela
    Henry Louis Gates Jr
  2. Nelson Mandela: Great exemplar of the grand democratic tradition
    Cornel West
  3. Views from a palette of the cultural rainbow
    Wole Soyinka

Dr Xolela Mangcu was previously a Director of the Steve Biko Foundation and is a former Executive Director of the Society, Culture and Identity research programme of the HSRC. Dr Mangcu is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Public Intellectual Life Project of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual. He currently serves as the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English at Harvard University, where he is the Chair of the African and African American Studies and the Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Cornel West is a prominent American scholar and public intellectual. Formerly at Harvard University, West is currently Professor of Religion at Princeton University.

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, considered by many to be Africa’s most distinguished playwright. He was the first person of African descent to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. He has taught in the Universities of Lagos, Ibadan and Ife, and is currently the Elias Ghanem Professor of Creative Writing at the English Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Presets Color

Primary
Secondary